fiction/non/fiction

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S9 Ep. 38 Peter Hessler on the Implications of a Chinese Education

July 09, 2026

Acclaimed nonfiction writer Peter Hessler joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about his new memoir, Other Rivers: A Chinese Education. Hessler, a New Yorker staff writer who first went to China as a teacher in the 1990s, explains how education there shifted between that era and 2019, when he returned to Sichuan Province with his wife and daughters to teach English again. He discusses the impact of his students’ shift from rural to urban lives, unpacks the difference...

S9 Ep. 37 Soman Chainani on the Dream of a Young President

July 02, 2026

Young adult novelist Soman Chainani joins co-hosts Christian Barter and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the impact of age on politics. Chainani, the author of a new novel called Young World that features a teenage everyman’s unlikely rise to the presidency, explains trying to make his premise as plausible as possible using devices like a Supreme Court decision, a split Electoral College, and realistic images. He talks about smuggling civics lessons into the plot, getting young people excited t...

S9 Ep. 36 Matthew Wolfe on the Secret History of Radical Environmentalism

June 25, 2026

Journalist Matthew Wolfe joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new book Fires in the Night: The Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a Secret History of Eco-Sabotage. Wolfe talks about the history of environmental activism, including its rarely discussed bipartisan past, and explains how industry made climate change a Democratic and progressive issue. He reflects on the impact of the Earth Liberation Front, which originated in England and developed another home...